


Time's up

by orphan_account



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ... or IS it character death?, IgNoct, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 19:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Resistance is futile.  Whoever said that never fought hard enough, in Ignis' opinion.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seki/gifts), [latt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/latt/gifts), [HisGlasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisGlasses/gifts).



> Disclaimer: you know the drill, I don't own FFXV or any of its content.
> 
> A/N: so I came up with two headcanons for the ending of FFXV and uhhhhhhh. I'm going to try mashing them together with this. Not sure how well it's gonna turn out, but here we go.

Noctis had always known from a young age that his death would be a horrifically painful affair.

Perhaps he'd fall to the rage of a daemon, maybe he'd encounter the Marilith a second time and fall in two pieces, maybe she'd forgo her weapons in favour of gripping each of his limbs with her hands and  _pulling_ until his body crumbled under such ferocity, maybe he'd still be  _conscious_ for the sensation of all four limbs ripping from his torso.

Perhaps he'd perish on the end of an assassin's blade as a teenager, his guards slain during shift change, the Crownsguard and Glaives too slow to respond to the alarm and Noctis too drained from a day's worth of learning to control his magic to summon it to his hand once more, too  _weary_ to summon the Armiger to defend himself, to  _run_.  Would they stab him in the back or carve a grin into his gut?  Would they watch the thick cream carpet stain red while he writhed on the floor and attempted to stem the bleeding?  Would they puncture a lung and listen as the breaths grew shorter, more panicked?  Or would they loom over him and laugh in the dead of night when the kiss of metal on his neck shocked him awake, wait for him to register their presence before cutting deep and decorating their uniform with his blood?

Perhaps his father would die in his teen years and he'd be forced to take the throne, wear a crown and ring he never asked for.  He'd take the throne and rule over Insomnia, attempt to negotiate peace with a nation bent on war and expand the borders of Lucis again, secure  _safety_ for his people with Ignis' advice ringing true in his ears and Gladio a steady and immovable presence at his side, a Shield waiting and watching for any danger and completely unaware of the death clasped on his finger and aging his body faster than his mind.  Breaking it down and wearing it out until he's old by thirty and  _ancient_ by fifty, limbs gone leaden and weak, breath rattling in tired lungs.  Death by aging, perhaps the slowest of all, and yet faster for a Lucis Caelum King in comparison to those around him.

He never suspected he would die at the hands of his _ancestors_.

And yet... it is perhaps the kindest way for him to go, surrounded by those who have been with him since childhood, their ghostly forms winking into existence when he needed support the most, the Rogue Queen going so far as to coax laughter from him on darker days.

 _"Kings of Lucis - come to me!"_    The sun, unknown to him, begins its slow ascent as each and every one of the royal bloodline flicker into existence, filling the throne room with their ethereal glow.

* * *

He cries out when the first blow lands, power  _bursting_ from him as the weapon plunges deep into his chest.  It slams him back against the throne, _pins_ him there while thirteen Lucis Caelums rip through him, cracking his soul wide open in the process.  And as his magic forms a warp-blue mist around him, daemons outside echo his screams when the first weak rays of sunshine on the horizon set their flesh ablaze.

* * *

His own momentum knocks Ignis off balance, stumbling forward a couple of steps to regain his footing when the daemon inexplicably  _recoils_ when only seconds before it had been hissing and lashing for his neck with deadly sharp claws.  He hears similar miscalculations from those fighting by his side, hears the thump of Prompto hitting the ground and his boots scuffing on the stairs they guard, the skittering of stone as he knocks loose some of the damaged paving and the  _clank_ of a heavy blade as Gladio uses it for support before he can topple over.

"What's going on?  What's happening?"  He hates that he has to ask, that he has no sensory clues to explain  _why_ the daemons are retreating, but he can  _guess_ and it's not something he wants to consider.  Not now.  Not with -

"They're burning up."

"Yeah!  Like they used to when - when the... when the sun... came... up...  _do you see that, Gladio?"_

Ignis doesn't wait around to hear Gladiolus respond, whips around on his heel and scrambles up the stairs with  _none_ of the grace he's painstakingly relearned over the past decade, doesn't wait to hear his confirmation that the sun is  _indeed_ rising, hot on Ignis' heels as he makes a beeline for the elevators.  It's a relatively straight path once inside the Citadel, one he'd counted his footsteps on, but his unit of measurement is useless when he's  _sprinting_ , cannot recall the exact placement of debris and tumbles clean over to slam bruises on top of bruises.  The fourth time this happens, a hand at his elbow yanks him up as Prompto reaches him and matches his pace, Gladio bringing up the rear until they pile into the elevator and one of them mashes on the button for the throne room (it's the only button with a  _ping_ that holds for three seconds, the others last for one).

They don't squawk at him to stop, don't remind him that their duty is to guard their king.  They know what he does, they've realised what he has.  Above them,  _so many damn floors above them_ , Noctis fights for his people.

At the cost of his own life.

 _Alone_.

* * *

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"It's not gonna start up again, is it?"

"We don't have time for this - force the doors open."

"With  _what?"_

"The giant bloody toothpick you call a sword."

"Uh, guys, what if we're not jammed on a floor?"

"Then we climb."  Maybe it's the ice lashed through his tone, or the set of an expression he'll never see in a mirror again, or he's succeeded in locking gazes with Gladio for once, or maybe it's the flicker of magic he can feel sparking on his fingertips.  Ignis cares little for the reason, only that  _whatever it is_ prompts Gladio into hefting his weapon and filling their small, confined box (perhaps it'll be their coffin if this doesn't work) with the godawful  _scrape_ of metal on metal, presumably attempting to coax the very tip of the blade between the doors to slowly work them open.  He counts his own breaths, his heartbeat, the accompanying sound of clicking beads as Prompto spins his favourite bracelet around his wrist again and again, picking up speed until Ignis wants to slap a hand over his just to  _stop it_.  He can feel the faint tremors working through the elevator as the largest of the three shifts his weight back and forth, the squeak of his boots as he slides his feet into a different position, a grunt of exertion.

If he turns his attention to the magic pooling somewhere in his belly, the same magic Noctis had shared with him so many years ago after opening channels for it throughout his body, if he _focuses_ on it... it feels  _wrong_ , like a flame deep in his body has gone out, snuffed over with snow and only growing colder.

They have to hurry.

And, when they break free of the uncooperative tin can, there are so many more floors to go.

* * *

He doesn't want to do this.  He doesn't want to find the throne with shaking hands and pat along it until he comes into contact with an arm, fingertips coming away bloody as he shifts his touch to Noctis, cautiously moving up to a shoulder and cupping his hand to a neck burned from the magic of the Lucii.  He doesn't want to register that Noctis is  _slumped_ forward but not falling free of his perch, doesn't want to tuck his fingers where his pulse point should be and reach out with his free hand to figure out  _why_ , only for Gladio to take it and guide him to the hilt of a sword he follows, breath kicked from his lungs when he finds it pushed deep into Noct's chest, pinning him in place like some  _sacrificial lamb_ for the whims of the Astrals.

He doesn't want to hear the  _silence_ broken by sniffles and uneven breathing, the sounds of grief dawning just like the sun coming in through ruined windows, warm on Ignis' face when it has no right to be.  What use is a sun when there is no lover to bask in it with?  What use is a sun when the man who fought so hard for it  _paid_ for it in death?

But no, not death, not quite.  Not yet.  There's a pulse at his fingertips, weak and faltering, but a pulse nonetheless.

"Remove it."

_"What?"_

"The weapon!  He's still alive!"

A moment's hesitation before there's movement to his right, and the  _sound_ of metal gradually pulling free of his lover's flesh is one that will haunt Ignis for as long as he lives, turns his stomach inside out as a shudder works up his spine and only a couple of hurried footsteps later he can hear Prompto being violently ill somewhere on Gladio's other side, further down from the throne.  Noct's body resists the removal, comes away from the throne  _with_ the weapon until Ignis sets his hands on his shoulders and braces him against the next pull, the next  _tug_.  He carefully lays Noctis down when the blade is free, leans over him and lays his hand flat on the ravaged flesh of his chest, distantly thankful for the barrier of his glove if only to keep  _this_ horror from his nightmares later.

"We're here, Noct, we've got you."

"Yeah buddy, not goin' anywhere."  Prompto again, a warm presence at his side, the rustle of cloth and soft sounds of shifting weight as he hunkers down beside him and does...  _something_.  Ignis doesn't know what, doesn't care to  _think_ of what it could be, reaches for his magic instead.

He pours it into Noctis.  All of it, everything he has to give.

_Live!  Live, damn you!  I will not lose you now after all these years!_

Every spark and every flame and every drop, even as Noct's body jerks under his hands, a ragged gasp for air cut short into a groan of pain Ignis barely hears over the shocked noises from the others, Prompto calling his name, Gladio telling him to stop.

He doesn't stop, all but tears the magic from its moorings within his very self as Noctis coughs on a second breath, turns his face into the bloody hand Ignis lifts to his cheek.

_"'s okay, Iggy... 's time."_

He doesn't listen to that, either.  Keeps on digging and digging and  _digging_ until he scrapes at the very bottom of his reserves and a full-body tremor works through him, until he can barely feel the  _scraps_ that are left, faltering in the minute space between his palm and Noct's chest until he grits his teeth and gives one last  _push_ , skin flashing from white-hot to clammy in seconds, chest tightening on his next inhale.  Not another word has been said from his lover, not even a noise of pain, and when Ignis no longer has the strength to keep himself upright, collapses over Noct's prone form, he doesn't try to fight the rope fitting around his neck and yanking him to the depths of unconsciousness.

Grief is already there to meet him.

* * *

"Roll him off Noctis.  Gently, I need to see what we're dealing with now."

"You heard him!  Move ove- Ignis...?  Iggy...?   _He's not breathing, Gladio!"_


	2. Chapter 2

Prompto catches the tenderness Gladio usually keeps locked up tighter than a snare drum with how he lowers Noct's body to the landing, easing into and crouch then folding down onto his knees rather than simply bending over and letting gravity slip Noct from his arms, with the three quick glances  _as_ he goes down to make sure Noct's feet aren't banging into the railing, with how he sets the King's butt down first, gently teases out his legs and lays his body flat, sliding a hand up his back as he does so that by the time Noct's head is meant to connect with the floor, Gladio cradles his skull to cushion the impact.  He sees it in the hand that hovers over the bandages wound expertly around a barely moving chest, the impulse to rest it there checked and diverted to feeling out the pulse in his neck instead, the quiet sigh of relief when it's found.

He doesn't comment on it, though.  Not when  _he_  does the same with Iggy, not when he's just as close to  _panicking_  at the sight before them.  Ignis has always been quiet by nature, but this is different.  This isn't quiet with a brain ticking behind it, waiting for the prime moment to drop an  _awful_  pun or turning over how best to flay them alive with the most  _scathing_  of words when they'd been at their most idiotic in battle, charging in with half-baked plans and somehow expecting it to go  _right_.  This isn't Ignis fussing over pots and pans and working his magic with every dash of seasoning, or sitting with hands laid on folded legs in the early hours of the morning, breathing in crisp, fresh air and waiting out the sun's slow creep above the horizon.  This isn't Ignis with a smirk teasing at the corners of his mouth, looking very much like the cat who got the cream, legs thrown over one arm of a battered chair and his back smooshed up against the other with only a cushion to save him from the aches and pains of such a bad posture, eyes glued to the pages he flicks slowly and meticulously, eyebrows slowly inching towards his hairline with every new  _"romance"_ segment in the book borrowed from Gladio's pack.  This isn't even Ignis after losing his eyesight, locked up in his small apartment in Lestallum and feeling his way around the kitchen he'd arranged  _specifically_ so he could shuffle around on his own and cook with an ease Prompto never would have thought possible, had he not watched his friend make dinner from start to finish.

This isn't quiet.  This is  _silent_ , even down to his breathing, something Prompto finds himself impulsively checking by holding a hand close to parted lips  _just to be sure_  he hasn't gone and died on them again like the typical unpredictable bastard he is.  This is something that makes Prompto nervous, makes him wish he could just pluck Ignis up and sprint up the rest of the stairs without fear of them giving way under their passage, break out onto the roof and find Aranea already there on the carrier's ramp, hand on her hip and foot tapping impatiently, commenting about "time is money" even though her mercenary days are over, ready to snark at them until they're grounded back in civilisation, back in safety.

But he can't do that.  The damage sustained over a decade ago has left the Citadel an absolute wreck of her former self, walls seeming to sprout new cracks even as Prompto stares at them, and weakened floors groaning ominously with even the slightest weight added to them.  They've done this countless times already, pausing on each landing and lowering both their downed comrades for Prompto to stand in front of, body angled so that he'll catch even the slightest movement coming at them from the route above or below in his peripheral vision, be ready to hunker down and let loose a volley of bullets if there's still some daemons stubbornly clinging to life and out for Noct's blood.  Gladio scouts ahead for the safest route to the next floor, be it on their current staircase or through the maze of corridors to one of the others.  The elevators are a no-go, not when their last ride up got them stuck seven levels from Noct and just one more minute would have had him dead on the throne for sure.  The progress is  _slow_  and their friends are  _injured_  and there's nothing he can do to speed up the process.

And to think he always used to complain to Noctis about the sheer  _size_  of the place, beautiful for its architecture but an absolute eyesore for how it loomed over the rest of Insomnia.  He sincerely wishes this isn't some cosmic lesson for him to eat his words.

* * *

The shrill alarm of his phone shocks Ignis from his slumber, slapping around to disable the damn thing even as he makes the mistake of blinking his eyes open, only to find the same suffocating darkness waiting for him as it has done since their ill-fated attempt to save an enraged goddess from the Empire.  The high-pitched racket from somewhere to the right of his head shuts off when he eventually locates the phone, only to start up again almost immediately after, reminding him that it's not the tone for an  _alarm_ , but an actual call.  Groggy, and fast approaching  _grumpy_ as he tries rolling over onto his stomach only to start up a round of screaming from seemingly every inch from his body, he connects the call and presses it to his ear, rubbing at useless eyes as though that will help peel the sticky tendrils of exhaustion from him.

"Hel-"

_"Hello Ignis.  I need you to listen very, very carefully to what I'm about to say."_

* * *

When Noctis wakes, shocked to find himself  _alive_  and very much  _in pain_ , it is to Gladio muttering under his breath about nurses and tucking sheets in so tight they might as well strapping their patients into bed, pulling at the offending blankets to loosen them and give Noctis room to wiggle around.  Not that he feels like he  _can_.  Surely there is an invisible behemoth rudely sitting on his chest and cleaning gore from its chops, preventing him from moving so much as an  _inch_.  Not that he feels like he  _can_ , but -

Voices rouse him next, and it's Prompto by his bedside, taking a can of Ebony (Ignis won't be happy about  _that_ ) from Gladio, and Noctis wonders when, exactly, he  _blinked_  and passed out for another god knows how many hours.  They look  _tired_ , eyes shadowed and heavy and Prompto looks like he hasn't seen the right side of a brush in weeks, his hair a tangled flop atop his head and mussed all the more when he runs his fingers through it.  Gladio visibly droops in his chair, reaches down as though to fish something from the bag at his feet, only to abort the motion when he nearly topples himself out of the chair, straightens up with a weary groan and massages at his temple instead, slumps  _back_.

"Please tell me... you've had...  _some_  rest."  He croaks, voice catching and fading out and  _utterly_  ruining his attempt to play down the hell currently rioting through every nerve.  There is some pleasure, some  _amusement_ , at watching Gladio rebound off the back of his chair as though one of Ramuh's fabled lightning bolts had struck him on the ass, hands slamming down on the bed by aching ribs and Noctis honestly thinks the big oaf is going to jump on his bed and smother him.

_"Oh my god you're awake!"_

But no, that would be Prompto, and before Noctis can formulate a response or even figure out how to twitch his fingers in greeting, he's squawking in outrage and no small amount of pain as a body seemingly comprised of bony elbows and unforgiving knees  _pounces_  on him and that fuzzy  _creature_ on Prompto's chin is tickling at his cheek even as relieved, partway hysterical laughter makes his skull pound something awful.

"Prom -  _Prom_  - breathing...  _nice_."  And his weight shifts to the side, frees up his chest again and Noctis can blink the black spots from his vision, wiggle his hand to awkwardly pat whatever part of Promto's body he can reach.

"You  _jerk_.  Are you telling me breathing's more important than saying hi to your buddy?  That'll teach me for being worried sick about you!"  But he's heard that tone, all false cheer and bravado to distract from how wet his eyes are, the way his lip wobbles, the warning  _sniff_.  So it doesn't come as much of a surprise when Prompto abandons the pout in favour of burrowing in close to his side and cautiously laying an arm over his belly, exhaling long and shaky somewhere between shoulder and neck.  "Please don't ever die on us again, yeah?"

"... Make no - promises."

" _See?_ Jerk.  Gladio, why do we stick around for this?"

And as though mention of his name has broken him from a stupor, Gladio heaves himself out of the chair long enough to lean over and ruffle his hair, his grin genuine and  _warm_  despite the exhaustion weighing him down, utter a low  _"hey"_ in greeting.  If Noctis hears a tremor in that one word, he pretends not to hear it.

"You look - like... shit... Gladio."

"And you smell like week old piss, so I guess we're even."

_"Ouch."_

"Seriously, though.  How're you feelin'?  We nearly lost you back there."

"Sore... thirsty... where's - here?"

"Lestallum, buddy.  Aranea airlifted us off the roof.  Fair warning?  She wants to slap you good looking."

"Yeah, somethin' about dumb heroes marching off to their deaths."  Considering they speak of _Aranea_ , he knows they're serious, but a slap from her is liable to knock him back unconscious with how weak he feels, how weak he  _is_  when he tries to lever up into a sitting position and needs Prompto's support just so he can drink some damn water, hold the glass in hands that shake so violently Titan might as well be sending earthquakes through his bones.  Maybe he could pretend to be asleep whenever she dropped by for a visit...

Then it  _clicks_.  The voice he  _hasn't_  heard yet, and the ice cold fingers of dread lock tight around his stomach.

_"Where's Ignis?"_

* * *

"Let me  _rest_ , damn you."  He's already tried disconnecting the call, but either his phone is possessed or the Astrals are having a right good laugh at his expense and the damn thing  _won't shut off_.  He's even tried tossing it in some direction as far away from himself as he can, only for it to boomerang back and clunk him square on the forehead.

Whoever it is on the other end of the line, they're not happy with him, all coherency of the high-pitched voice lost to a tirade in a language he doesn't understand, though given the blistering  _heat_  he can hazard a guess that their spiel fouls the air around them.

All things considered... is rest too much to ask for?  Every step drags as though concrete blocks are attached to his feet, his insides feel like they've been ripped out and shoved through a cheese grater before being dumped back in through his mouth, and his  _bones_.  He shouldn't be able to  _crawl_  with this kind of agony, never mind walk.  It's almost as stomach churning as the throbbing ache he'd woken to just before learning his vision was a thing of the past.  A massive, neon sign stamped over every conceivable inch of his body and knocking sledgehammers into him at every minute  _twitch_.

 _"Now you listen here, Ignis Scientia.  Rest is_ not _an option.  I don't care how tired you are.  I don't care how much you hurt.  I don't care if you walk so far that your shoes wear down to sand and your feet bleed.  You_ must _keep moving."_

"Why?!"

_"Because you can't be left here if Noctis needs you!"_

"Noctis is  _dead_.  As am I, I imagine, though if this is the afterlife I am sorely tempted to request a refund."

_"DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK I'D BE SPENDING MY TIME DEBATING WITH YOUR UNCOOPERATIVE BACKSIDE IF NOCTIS WAS DEAD?!  I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE BRAINS OF THE GROUP!"_

"Who  _are_  you?"

_"CARBUNCLE.  AND YOU ARE AN IDIOT DUMMY TESTING MY PATIENCE.  GET ON YOUR FEET AND **MOVE IT** , SCIENTIA."_

He's  _certain_  there's a mutter after that, something about  _"oh my frazzled whiskers, he's worse than Titan with no iron to teethe on"_... but then he's also certain he somehow managed to crack his head open when he collapsed.  Like an egg.  A very confused and very sore egg, leaving a trail of  _goop_ behind him.

* * *

Ignis is  _cold_ , with a pallor usually reserved for  _morgues_ , not someone seemingly asleep on a hospital bed with absolutely nothing wrong with him.  Gladio says so, Prompto says so, and the few nurses that have come in to check on his breathing and the stitches holding his chest together have said so.  For all intents and purposes, Ignis is alive and well, and  _yet_.  For all that he has a strong heartbeat, his chest hardly moves with each inhale.  He doesn't respond when Noctis squeezes his hand, there's no restless movement of eyes beneath scarred lids or a furrow of his brow, or even a soft mutter of the sleep-talking he hasn't heard in  _years_.

It's almost like... his body lives, but his soul is elsewhere.

He calls on his magic, dips into that internal pool and swirls it around until there's a sluggish response, sends a weak pulse of heat through icy fingers and presses a kiss over each knuckle and the smattering of scars on Ignis' palm from the numerous errors in judgement trying to catch daggers.  Lifts it to his face and lays it on his cheek, folds his own hand over it and squeezes  _tight_ , strains to speak over the lump in his throat and  _look_ at him through the misty film of tears he refuses to shed.  Not yet.  Not until Ignis comes awake or - or...

"Come back to me, Iggy.   _Please._ "

* * *

"If I may - why are you helping me, Carbuncle?  I thought you favoured Noctis."

_"I do.  I can't simply sit around and let you waltz off to your afterlife when losing you will break Noctis, can I?  And you happen to be a decent human, **when you're not being a thick-skulled idiot**."_

"My, but you  _are_ a charming little fellow."

_"Now now, don't be a smarty-pants to the nice little Astral acting as your guide.  I might just turn around and bite your testicles off for spite."_

"..."

_"Much better!  Now hurry along, there's not far left to go."_

* * *

He wakes, not with a start, but with a  _bump_.  A small, light pap on his ear, a tiny paw cuffing him before he lost his footing and fell... and fell... and fell.

He is warm.  The mattress under him is just the wrong side of soft for his comfort.  There is a weight by his hip, and breathing coming from that general direction.  A pattern that doesn't match Gladio  _or_ Prompto.  He is  _stiff_  all over, arm creaking in protest when he tries moving it to investigate that weight, trembling with the effort it takes to stay aloft as his fingers encounter  _hair_.

A person, then.  Asleep at his bedside.  Hair too long to be Cor, too short to be Aranea, and the lobe of the ear isn't  _quite_  rounded enough to belong to Iris.  Beard growth disrupted by scars on the cheek, thin raised lines that bracket an eye socket, fan out towards a nose -

They jerk awake, pulling free of his hand even as he drops it back to the bed and  _reaches_  for his daggers, winces when spikes scatter through his veins in response, but before he can force through that discomfort and  _pull_  them through to his hands, there's a sharp inhale of breath and a ragged whisper of his name and he freezes seemingly at the same moment the other occupant of the room does.

It sounded like Noctis.

Not the Noctis he remembers before the world was plunged into darkness, always cranky when they had to rouse him before he was  _ready_ to wake up, who would scowl down at the coffee Ignis forced into his hands as though expecting the secrets of the universe to pop out before his very eyes and do the moogle dance.  Not the Noctis who would sometimes,  _somehow_ , wake before everyone else and shock Ignis awake with the draft of cold air as he unzipped his sleeping bag and  _invaded_ , making up for it with warm kisses and warmer hands sweeping aches and pains from his shoulders and back.  No, it sounded like the Noctis who came back.  Older, weary, resigned.  Each step measured and  _sure_  as he led them through the wreckage of their home, walked towards his  _death_ with head held high and Armiger poised to rip apart any daemon foolish enough to disrupt their advance.

 _"Ignis."_   He says again, little more than a whisper, so much hope and hurt in his voice that it makes Ignis' chest ache in an entirely different way and oh, how he  _wishes_  he could see.   _Just this once_.  Just for a  _moment_.

But then the moment is ruined in the scrape of metal on cheap flooring and a  _crash_  that can only be a chair and its occupant falling over, promptly followed by a round of such  _colourful_ cursing that Ignis can't help but laugh.  Laugh and laugh and  _laugh_  until his eyes prick with tears and he can't  _breathe_  for the  _relief_  that he's heard something other than "walk tall" or "it's time", fighting through his body's exhaustion if only to reach out and grab hold of  _something_ ,  _anything_ , just to feel the heat of a body very much alive compared to the one he'd attempted to heal in the Citadel, weak and failing even as he forced his magic to heal and mend and  _fix_  what death was stealing away.

"Nonono, stay there, I'm fine, don't hurt yourself, I'll come to -  _shit_  hang on a second."

A brief scuffle, and then a hand finds his and he uses it to pull Noctis close, fights with the blanket tucked tight over him so he can wriggle back and make  _space_ and the very second Noctis joins him on the bed he's pressing close, frantically patting up his arm and shoulder and neck to find his face and  _feel_ it warm, alive, the breath on his palm and the smile on lips he'd last encountered split and bloody, leans his forehead against Noct's and inhales his next exhale, works his mouth several times in an effort to banish the lump in his throat in favour of saying something,  _anything_.

_"I didn't think it would work."_

Laughter, soft and rich and  _intimate_ , right by his ear, scruff rubbing against his cheek as Noctis  _nuzzles_ in that way of his and there's fingers working through his hair, sweeping it back from his face and tucking strands behind his ear.  If only he could see and meet the gaze he feels on him.   _If only_.

"Yeah, it worked.  I'm here, Ignis.  I'm not going anywhere.  Not anymore, I swear."

* * *

He watches over the lovers from where he's perched on the bedside table, one brown eye peering over his tail at where they're cuddled up together on the bed, their blonde friend asleep on the one Noctis had vacated to monitor Scientia's - no, Ignis' - condition for himself, the bulkier human stationed between both with that slab of metal he calls a sword flat on his knees, hands resting atop the blade.

Guarding them.

But not against Carbuncle.

Or their newest visitor, his presence filling the room until it feels too small, too  _suffocating_ , and Carbuncle bares his teeth in a warning growl when Noctis makes a disgruntled noise in his sleep, rest he dearly needs.

_To what do I owe the displeasure of your company, Draconian?_

**It is unlike you to spend such effort on a handful of mortals, Dreamweaver.  Call me... curious.**

_They are dearest to Noctis, as he is dearest to me.  They each have sacrificed more than enough to meet your demands - you **will** leave them be._

**They are worth such a waste of your power?**

_It is never a waste to guard and guide one's own, Draconian.  But such a sentiment is foreign and wrong to the God of **War** , is it not?_

Bahamut has no answer for him, merely sends tendrils of smoke through the room to ruffle at the hair of each human Carbuncle has adopted as his own, and even as he shakes out his fur and drops to the floor with a yowl, sends forth a surge of red sparks to weave around his sleeping humans in an impenetrable barrier, the other Astral departs as quickly as he'd appeared, booming laughter left in his wake and threatening to bring nightmares to the forefront.

Carbuncle huffs, unimpressed, paces the room twice just to be certain that  _nothing else_ has been left behind and when he's satisfied there isn't, hops up onto a bed instead of the table, and stretches out above where Noctis and Ignis share the same pillow.

* * *

"Hey, Carbuncle?"

_< yes, Noct?>_

"Thank you, for guiding him back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands up who seriously thought I'd leave them both dead XD


End file.
